]> Huawei

101 Software Avenue, Yuhua District Nanjing Jiangsu 210012 China maqiufang1@huawei.com

Huawei

101 Software Avenue, Yuhua District Nanjing Jiangsu 210012 China bill.wu@huawei.com

Ericsson

balazs.lengyel@ericsson.com

HPE

flycoolman@gmail.com

ops NETMOD immutable read-only NETMOD This document defines a YANG extension named "immutable" to indicate that specific "config true" data nodes are not allowed to be created/deleted/updated. To indicate that specific instances of a list/leaf-list node cannot be changed after initialization, a metadata annotation with the same name is also defined. Any data node or instance marked as immutable is read-only to the clients of YANG-driven management protocols, such as NETCONF, RESTCONF and other management operations (e.g., SNMP and CLI requests).

YANG is a data modeling language used to model both state and configuration data, based on the "config" statement. However there exists data that should not be modifiable by the client, but still needs to be declared as "config true" to: allow configuration of data nodes under immutable lists or containers; ensure the existence of specific list entries that are provided and needed by the system, while additional list entries can be created, modified or deleted; place "when", "must" and "leafref" constraints between configuration and immutable schema nodes. E.g., the interface name and type values created by the system due to the hardware currently present in the device cannot be modified by clients, while configurations such as MTU created by the system are free to be modified by the client. Further examples and use-cases are described in . Allowing some configuration to be modifiable while other parts are not is inconsistent and introduces ambiguity to clients. To address this issue, this document defines a YANG extension and a metadata annotation named "immutable" to indicate the immutability characteristic of a particular schema node or instantiated data node. If a schema node is marked as immutable, data nodes based on the schema MUST NOT be added, removed or updated by management protocols, such as NETCONF, RESTCONF or other management operations (e.g., SNMP and CLI requests). If an instantiated data node is marked as immutable the server MUST reject changes to it by YANG-driven management protocols, such as NETCONF, RESTCONF and other management operations (e.g., SNMP and CLI requests). Marking instance data nodes as immutable (as opposed to marking schema-nodes) is important when only some instances of a list or leaf-list shall be marked as read-only. Theoretically, any "config true" data node is allowed to be created, updated and deleted. This work makes write access restrictions other than general YANG and NACM rules visible, which doesn't mean attaching such restrictions is encouraged.

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here. The following terms are defined in and and are not redefined here: configuration data access operation write access The following terms are defined in this document: A property indicating that a schema node or data instance is not allowed to be created/deleted/updated.

The "immutable" concept only puts write access restrictions to read-write datastores. When a specific data node or instance is marked as "immutable", NACM cannot override this to allow create/delete/update access. A particular data node or instance MUST have the same immutability in all read-write datastores. The immutable annotation information should be visible even in read-only datastores (e.g., <system>, <intended>, <operational>), however this only serves as information about the data node itself, but has no effect on the handling of the read-only datastore. The immutability property of a particular data node or instance MUST be protocol-independent and user-independent. If a particular container/list/leaf-list node is marked as "immutable" without exceptions for "delete" in the schema, the server SHOULD NOT annotate its instances, as that provides no additional information. If a particular leaf/anydata/anyxml node is marked as "immutable" without exceptions for "delete" or "update" in the schema, the server SHOULD NOT annotate its instances, as that provides no additional information. Servers MUST reject any attempt to the "create", "delete" and "update" access operations on an immutable data node or instance marked by the metadata annotation or YANG extension (except according to the exceptions argument). The error reporting is performed immediately at an <edit-config> operation time, regardless what the target configuration datastore is. For an example of an "invalid-value" error response, see . However the following operations SHOULD be allowed: Use a create, update, delete/remove operation on an immutable node/instance if the effective change is null. E.g. If a leaf has a current value of "5" it should be allowed to replace it with a value of "5". Create an immutable data node/instance with a same value initially set by the system if it doesn't exist in the datastore. E.g., explicitly configure a system-generated interface name and type in <running>; Note that even if a particular data node is immutable without the exception for "delete", it still can be deleted with its parent node, e.g., /if:interfaces/if:interface/if:type leaf is immutable, but the deletion to the /if:interfaces/if:interface list entry is allowed; if a particular data node is immutable without the exception for "create", it means the client can never create the instance of it, regardless the handling of its parent node. TODO: Is immutable inherited down the containment hierarchy? If it is, should we allow overriding the immutability of a particular contained element (i.e., to declare a contained data node as immutable=false inside an immutable container/list) ?

The "immutable" YANG extension can be a substatement to a leaf, leaf-list, container, list, anydata or anyxml statement. It indicates that data nodes based on the parent statement MUST NOT be added, removed or updated except according to the exceptions argument. The server MUST reject any such write attempt. The "immutable" YANG extension defines an argument statement named "exceptions" which gives a list of operations that users are permitted to invoke for the specified node. The following values are supported for the "exceptions" argument: Create: allow users to create instances of the data node; Update: allow users to modify instances of the data node; Delete: allow users to delete instances of the data node.

The "immutable" flag is used to indicate the immutability of a particular instantiated data node. It only applies to the list/leaf-list entries. The values are boolean types indicating whether the data node instance is immutable or not. Any list/leaf-list instance annotated with immutable="true" is read-only to clients, which means that once an instance is created, the client cannot change it. If a list entry is annotated with immutable="true", any contained descendant instances of any type (including leafs, lists, containers, etc.) inside the specific instance is not allowed to be created, updated and deleted without the need to annotate descendant nodes instances explicitly. Note that "immutable" metadata annotation is used to annotate instances of a list/leaf-list rather than schema nodes. For instance, a list node may exist in multiple instances in the data tree, "immutable" can annotate some of the instances as read-only, while others are not. When the client retrieves a particular datastore, immutable data node instances MUST be annotated with immutable="true" by the server. If the "immutable" metadata annotation inside a list entry is not specified, the default "immutable" value for a list/leaf-list entry is false. Different from the "immutable" YANG extension, deletion to an instance marked with immutable="true" metadata annotation SHOULD always be allowed unless the list/leaf-list data node in the schema has an im:immutable extension as substatement without a "delete" exception.

<CODE BEGINS> file="ietf-immutable@2022-04-18.yang" // RFC Ed.: replace XXXX with RFC number and remove this note module ietf-immutable { yang-version 1.1; namespace "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-immutable"; prefix im; import ietf-yang-metadata { prefix md; } organization "IETF Network Modeling (NETMOD) Working Group"; contact "WG Web: <https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/netmod/> WG List: <mailto:netmod@ietf.org> Author: Qiufang Ma <mailto:maqiufang1@huawei.com> Author: Qin Wu <mailto:bill.wu@huawei.com> Author: Balazs Lengyel <mailto:balazs.lengyel@ericsson.com> Author: Hongwei Li <mailto:flycoolman@gmail.com>"; description "This module defines a metadata annotation named 'immutable' to indicate the immutability of a particular instantiated data node. Any instantiated data node marked with immutable='true' by the server is read-only to the clients of YANG-driven management protocols, such as NETCONF, RESTCONF as well as SNMP and CLI requests. The module defines the immutable extension that indicates that data nodes based ona data-dafinition statement cannot be added removed or updated except according to the exceptions argument. Copyright (c) 2022 IETF Trust and the persons identified as authors of the code. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, is permitted pursuant to, and subject to the license terms contained in, the Revised BSD License set forth in Section 4.c of the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info). This version of this YANG module is part of RFC HHHH (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfcHHHH); see the RFC itself for full legal notices. The key words 'MUST', 'MUST NOT', 'REQUIRED', 'SHALL', 'SHALL NOT', 'SHOULD', 'SHOULD NOT', 'RECOMMENDED', 'NOT RECOMMENDED', 'MAY', and 'OPTIONAL' in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 (RFC 2119) (RFC 8174) when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here."; revision 2022-04-18 { description "Initial revision."; reference "RFC XXXX: Immutable Metadata Annotation"; } extension immutable { argument exceptions; description "The 'immutable' extension as a substatement to a data definition statement indicates that data nodes based on the parent statement MUST NOT be added, removed or updated by management protocols, such as NETCONF, RESTCONF or other management operations (e.g., SNMP and CLI requests) except when indicated by the exceptions argument. Immutable data MAY be marked as config true to allow 'leafref', 'when' or 'must' constraints to be based on it. The statement MUST only be a substatement of the leaf, leaf-list, container, list, anydata, anyxml statements. Zero or one immutable statement per parent statement is allowed. No substatements are allowed. The argument is a list of operations that are permitted to be used for the specified node, while other operations are forbidden by the immutable extension. - create: allows users to create instances of the data node - update: allows users to modify instances of the data node - delete: allows users to delete instances of the data node To disallow all user write access, omit the argument; To allow only create and delete user access, provide the string 'create delete' for the 'exceptions' parameter. Providing all 3 parameters has the same affect as not using this extension at all, but can be used anyway. Equivalent YANG definition for this extension: leaf immutable { type bits { bit create; bit update; bit delete; } default ''; } Adding immutable or removing values from the exceptions argument of an existing immutable statement are non-backwards compatible changes. Other changes to immutable are backwards compatible."; } md:annotation immutable { type boolean; description "The 'immutable' annotation indicates the immutability of an instantiated data node. Any data node instance marked as 'immutable=true' is read-only to clients and cannot be updated through NETCONF, RESTCONF or CLI. It applies to the list and leaf-list entries. The default is 'immutable=false' if not specified for an instance."; } } <CODE ENDS>

This document registers one XML namespace URN in the 'IETF XML registry', following the format defined in .

URI: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-immutable Registrant Contact: The IESG. XML: N/A, the requested URIs are XML namespaces.

This document registers one module name in the 'YANG Module Names' registry, defined in .

name: ietf-immutable prefix: im namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-immutable RFC: XXXX // RFC Ed.: replace XXXX and remove this comment

The YANG module specified in this document defines a metadata annotation for data nodes that is designed to be accessed network management protocols such as NETCONF or RESTCONF . The lowest NETCONF layer is the secure transport layer, and the mandatory-to-implement secure transport is Secure Shell (SSH) . The lowest RESTCONF layer is HTTPS, and the mandatory-to-implement secure transport is TLS . Since immutable information is tied to applied configuration values, it is only accessible to clients that have the permissions to read the applied configuration values. The security considerations for the Defining and Using Metadata with YANG (see Section 9 of [RFC7952]) apply to the metadata annotation defined in this document.

This section shows how to use im:immutable YANG extension to mark some data node as immutable. When an interface is physically present, the system will create an interface entry automatically with valid name and type values in <system> (see ). The system-generated data is dependent on and must represent the HW present, and as a consequence must not be changed by the client. The data is modelled as "config true" and should be marked as immuable. Seemingly an alternative would be to model the list and these leaves as "config false", but that does not work because: The list cannot be marked as "config false", because it needs to contain configurable child nodes, e.g., ip-address or enabled; The key leaf (name) cannot be marked as "config false" as the list itself is config true; The type cannot be marked "config false", because we MAY need to reference the type to make different configuration nodes conditionally available. The immutability of the data is the same for all interface instances, thus following fragment of a fictional interface module including an "immutable" YANG extension can be used:

container interfaces { list interface { key "name"; leaf name { type string; } leaf type { im:immutable "create"; type identityref { base ianaift:iana-interface-type; } mandatory true; } leaf mtu { type uint16; } leaf-list ip-address { type inet:ip-address; } } }

Note that the "name" leaf is defined as a list key which can never been modified for a particular list entry, there is no need to mark "name" as immutable.

As defined in the YANG model, there is an exception for "create" operation. Assume the interface hardware is not present physically at this point, the client is allowed to create an interface named "eth0" with a type value in <running>:

<rpc xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0" message-id="101"> <edit-config> <target> <running/> </target> <config> <interface xmlns:xc="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0" xmlns:ianaift="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:iana-if-type" xc:operation="create"> <name>eth0</name> <type>ianaift:ethernetCsmacd</type> </interface> </config> </edit-config> </rpc> <rpc-reply message-id="101" xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0"> <ok/> </rpc-reply>

The interface data does not appear in <operational> since the physical interface doesn't exist. When the interface is inserted, the system will detect it and create the associated configuration in <system>. The system tries to merge the interface configuration in the <running> datastore with the same name as the inserted interface configuration in <system>. If no such interface configuration named "eth0" is found in <system> or the type set by the client doesn't match the real interface type generated by the system, only the system-defined interface configuration is applied and present in <operational>.

Assume the system applied the interface configuration named "eth0" successfully. If a client tries to change the type of an interface to a value that doesn't match the real type of the interface used by the system, the server must reject the request:

<rpc message-id="101" xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0" xmlns:xc="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0"> <edit-config> <target> <running/> </target> <config> <interface xc:operation="merge" xmlns:ianaift="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:iana-if-type"> <name>eth0</name> <type>ianaift:tunnel</type> </interface> </config> </edit-config> </rpc> <rpc-reply message-id="101" xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0" xmlns:xc="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0"> <rpc-error> <error-type>application</error-type> <error-tag>invalid-value</error-tag> <error-severity>error</error-severity> <error-path xmlns:t="http://example.com/schema/1.2/config"> /interfaces/interface[name="eth0"]/type </error-path> <error-message xml:lang="en"> Invalid type for interface eth0 </error-message> </rpc-error> </rpc-reply>

System capabilities might be represented as system-defined data nodes in the model. Configurable data nodes might need constraints specified as "when", "must" or "path" statements to ensure that configuration is set according to the system's capabilities. E.g., A timer can support the values 1,5,8 seconds. This is defined in the leaf-list 'supported-timer-values'. When the configurable 'interface-timer' leaf is set, it should be ensured that one of the supported values is used. The natural solution would be to make the 'interface-timer' a leaf-ref pointing at the 'supported-timer-values'. However, this is not possible as 'supported-timer-values' must be read-only thus config=false while 'interface-timer' must be writable thus config=true. According to the rules of YANG it is not allowed to put a constraint between config true and false schema nodes. The solution is that the supported-timer-values data node in the YANG Model shall be defined as "config true" and shall also be marked with the "immutable" extension. After this the 'interface-timer' shall be defined as a leaf-ref pointing at the 'supported-timer-values'.

There are some system-defined entries for a "config true" list which are present in <system> (see ) and cannot be updated by the client, such system-defined instances should be defined immutable. The client is free to define, update and delete their own list entries in <running>. Thus the list data node in the YANG model cannot be marked as "immutable" extension as a whole. But some of the system-defined list entries need to be protected if they are copied from the <system> datastore to <running>. An immutable metadata annotation can be useful in this case. When the client retrieves those system-defined entries towards <system> (or <running> if they are copied into <running>), an immutable="true" annotation is returned; so that the client can understand that the predefined list entries shall not be updated but they can configure their list entries without any restriction.

Note to RFC Editor (To be removed by RFC Editor) v01 - v02 clarify the relation between the creation/deletion of the immutable data node with its parent data node; Add a "TODO" comment about the inheritance of the immutable property; Define that the server should reject write attempt to the immutable data node at an <edit-config> operation time, rather than waiting until a <commit> or <validate> operation takes place; v00 - v01 Added immutable extension Added new use-cases for immutable extension and annotation Added requirement that an update that means no effective change should always be allowed Added clarification that immutable is only applied to read-write datastore Narrowed the applied scope of metadata annotation to list/leaf-list instances